Month: October 2017

This weekend I ran my twelfth marathon at Chelmsford. My body coped with the distance much better than I thought it would, given my severe lack of training and recent back injury amongst other things. I got to mile 17 before my body said ‘Erm, what are you doing?!’ and started to slow down, although I ended up with a time that wasn’t too far off my early marathon times but I’ll save that story for another day.

Milton Keynes will be my 14th marathon (Hopefully at least…I still have my 13th marathon at Gower planned for next month first!)

I will always have a soft spot for Milton Keynes Marathon as it was my first 26.2, back in 2012. Back where my long distance running obsession began!

So, why should you run Milton Keynes Marathon? Here are my top ten reasons…

#1 If running a marathon isn’t your thing, there are lots of other distances for you to try instead. Or, if running a marathon is your thing, but you need something to keep your wife/husband/friend/children… amused and co-operative for the weekend, then sign them up for the half marathon, marathon relay, Rocket 5k or the Superhero fun run event.
Oscar and I will so be running the Superhero event when he is a little older!

{Picture taken from the MK marathon website}

#2 If you run the Rocket 5k event on the Saturday, followed by either the marathon or half marathon on the Sunday, not only will you get a medal for having completed each event, but you will get the MK Challenge medal for having completed BOTH events as well.

#3 There are so many opportunities for supporters to head out to see you on the course. Dan is a seasoned race supporter now and can quickly zoom around to spot me in several locations, even with a baby in tow! The first six miles of the course is an out and back of sorts along the dual carriageway with a few side streets and loops thrown in along the way. This is great for atmosphere as you see all of the faster/slower runners heading in the other direction and turning off into different side streets around you. My eyes are always constantly scanning the crowds of runners, searching for other runners from my club to shout support out to. It is also a great place for non-running supporters to see you numerous times. In 2014 I managed to spot one of my coaches five times before the six mile mark!

#4 The marathon costs between just £42-£50 depending on when you sign up for the event. (The price increases the longer you leave it…you’ve been warned!) I’ve entered half marathons that cost more than that! {*cough* Great North Run *cough*}

#5 This event is fast and flat. Yes, there are subways to go under and back up again along the way, but there seems to be barely any elevation change across the whole course. (If you were thinking about entering the double day challenge, The Rocket 5k is entirely flat/downhill. I managed to run it in 29 minutes at an easy pace when I was nearly 5 months pregnant in 2015!)

#6 Despite being a ‘city’ marathon, and the first six miles of the course mainly following the dual carriageway, the race then gets out into the surrounding villages of Milton Keynes and you run through a series of beautiful parks out on the route.

#7 There will be pacers available for times every fifteen minutes between 3 hours and 5 hours 15 minutes, clearly marked with bibs and balloons.

#8 Milton Keynes marathon/half has one of the best finishes I’ve run in a race. You run up the road alongside the MK Dons stadium before turning into the car park, down into the stadium itself and around the inside of the stadium for a lap of honour of the pitch before crossing the finish line. My running club contains some of the loudest cheering runners I have ever met, so the atmosphere is always electric when I’ve run through into the stadium and can hear them screaming my name as I run around the outside for my finish.

#9 The medal has always been fab. Definitely something you want to show off round your neck for the next couple of days! 😉

#10 If you are running your fifth Milton Keynes marathon, you will also be presented with a Marathon Legends medal.

As well as receiving a medal, Marathon Legends are able to use the Performance Room at the stadium – overlooking the finish. Their names are listed on the MK marathon website, and they also receive a discount on entry to the event in future years. Of the six years the event has been running, I have run marathon three times, the half once, and supported once out on the course as well. So I’ve been around five times…if only I’d run the marathon those other two times though!

What do you think makes a good marathon/race event?Do you have a Spring marathon lined up for next year?

There is a special page on the parkrun website which lists all parkrunners who have run 20 or more different parkrun events. One of my aims for this year was to get onto this table, and I’ve been busy slogging away working out which new parkruns I can visit just lately.

I’m currently up to 92 parkruns at 17 different events, and I’ve loved seeing all the differences in the parkrun events I’ve been to. I really must write a post at some point with all of my favourite elements of each parkrun as I’ve seen some great ideas this year which might come in handy for anyone setting up a new event.

I thought I only had my last three parkruns to write up, but it actually turns out I’m five behind now.

Annoyingly, I visited Wimpole Estate and Blickling when my phone was still broken so don’t have any pictures to share from those events.

Here goes…

parkrun #88 – Kettering
29th July

This was the first time I had been able to ‘run hard’ at a parkrun in a while. Dan offered to come along and push Oscar round in the buggy so that I might test my legs out.

I misjudged my starting position though, realising as the chap stood next to me during the briefing raised his hand to indicate that he would be pacing 33 minutes!

I tried to shimmy myself further forward in the pack, but pacers were one of the last announcements made, and before I knew it, I was weaving in and out of other runners with a choppy stride trying to squeeze past others on the narrow path. There went my potential good time! Kettering parkrun has a long pontoon at the far end of the course that you run along twice, and I was very held up behind other runners during my first crossing as many of them slowed right down to feel less wobbly as the bridge came up to meet their pounding feet. It is a very bizarre feeling as you run across with the bridge wobbling everywhere!

I think Dan realised just how difficult it could be running with the buggy and avoiding other runners during this run! Still, I jogged back to see him finish in a respectable 34:07. Oscar was busy chewing on his giraffe, which he then shared with his swimming buddy, whose Dad was marshaling at one of the corners towards the end of the run.

parkrun #89 – Wolverhampton
5th August

One of Dan’s best friends got married at the start of August. Dan was one of the ushers so headed back for last minute wedding details (and drinking) on the Friday evening, leaving Oscar and I to drive across the following morning. As the wedding was held near to Dan’s parents’ house in the West Midlands and the wedding service wasn’t to be until the early afternoon I jumped on the chance to get some more parkrun tourism in, planning on showering and changing at Dan’s parents’ house after the run.

The Wolverhampton course is three laps around the outside of West park. I’ve been to the park many times as Dan has often parked there when he goes to watch the football at Molineux on a weekend.

Another runner helpfully pointed me in the direction of the start when I arrived. The first thing to note about the Wolverhampton parkrun is that everybody had really strong Wolverhampton accents! I’m glad I’ve spent lots of time around Dan’s family and friends lately because otherwise I’m not sure I would have understood too much of the briefing! 😉

I had been asked to start at the back, as I had Oscar. I understand why parkrun events ask buggy runners to start at the back, but I do think some of the responsibility of placing yourself and buggy should lay with the runner, especially on a course with laps, as you are much more likely to end up clipping somebody if you are frequently overtaking others with the buggy than if you were to settle in to the correct starting position to begin with.

The first lap was tough with so much overtaking, but by the second lap I could easily move around the narrow path without problem. I was really shocked how few runners there were actually. Wolverhampton is a massive city, but with just 266 runners, this parkrun is actually one of the smaller parkruns I’ve visited, especially when it comes to relative size to location.

The nice thing about a lapped course is that you see the same marshals several times. One marshal kept updating me on how awake Oscar looked, and they loved that he just propped both feet up on his front bar and chilled out for the entirety of the run!At one point, Oscar caught a falling leaf, and found it the best thing ever! He was so excited and kept squealing away in his buggy! I ended up with my fastest buggy parkrun time despite the slow start, which was a nice surprise!

parkrun #90 – Wimpole Estate
19th August

I had a free Saturday morning and had hoped to get in another new parkrun. A pregnant friend contacted me the day before to see if I fancied running a parkrun the next morning. I said yes, on the condition that it was a new-to-me one, and so we made the hour-long journey to Wimpole Estate.

Somebody I work with regularly runs at Wimpole Estate, and I knew of a few runners from Twitter who occasionally made it over for this event too. All had warned me of the hill out on the course!

I had Oscar in the buggy for this run, and bumped into Katie with her little one, Flo, who I have only spoken to via Twitter previously. Katie’s husband would be the one with the buggy that week, and she filled me in on buggy tips for the course, and at what point the hill would appear!

I vowed to run the entire course with the buggy, and thinking I had already gone up ‘the hill’ decided that it was actually a fairly easy route, despite the long, thick grass underfoot. I soon realised that the hill was yet to come though, and my vow to run the whole course was almost thwarted here, as it seemed everybody around stopped to walk the hill. I took Oscar off-track, onto one wheel briefly, head down and continued to push him up the steep climb.

We made it to the top and enjoyed a lovely view before rocketing back down the other side. Very glad I took Katie’s advice to tuck my hand in the handlebar loop and keep a tight grip here!

At the bottom the other side there were several cattle, but marshals among them to make sure they didn’t wander on course. One was stood right behind a parkrun sign and from a distance it genuinely looked as though the sign had been pinned to the cow!

Katie and husband were there to cheer me through the finish which was nice, and I then waited for my friend to finish her run, before we headed to the café for cheese scones and hot chocolate. It was the first time I’ve run parkrun with a friend in a long while and I’ve missed my post parkrun cake shop visits!

parkrun #91 – Blickling
2nd September

My fastest parkrun since having Oscar!

My Dad volunteered to come along and push Oscar around the course in his buggy and act as support for my run this week. The course is ideal for support, as there is just short of two full laps of the section of the park we ran. This meant I passed Dad and Oscar twice, although Dad nearly missed me the first time, despite my mad waving!

There were quite a few other tourists stood alongside me at the new runners’ briefing, as shown by their apricot tops. I think I’m going to ask for an apricot top for Christmas. I’d like to have it printed up with my home parkrun, although I’m not really sure I can count Northampton as my home event any more. I hardly ever seem to run there now!

The course at Blickling starts on a slight uphill. I had been unsure how to approach the run, but after a strong start, with a low 8:xx constantly showing on my watch despite the uphill, I decided to just go for it and run hard the whole way round.

It’s a very lovely out-in-the-open course run along tracks with vast areas of grass all around. There is a small section where you run through the trees towards the end of the lap, but this was really pretty. I guiltily passed a chap pushing a double buggy containing older children who were demanding snacks at this point on my second lap!

It felt so nice to run at a harder pace again. I’ve had to take Oscar along with me for the majority of parkruns since he was born. Although, as Dan now has a season ticket for the football again this year, I think he might want to start spending a bit of time with Oscar on Saturday mornings before heading back for the football each week so I might see some more harder runs before the end of the year. I’m sure I can’t be too far off that 26:xx parkrun time again!

parkrun #92 – March
14th October

I’ve been traveling back four times a week to see my family since mid-September. My days tend to be Monday, Tuesday (with a stay-over in between), Thursday and then Saturday. Evenings only whilst I was still at work last month. It took me until now though to realise that I was missing out on some serious parkrun tourism opportunities on my drive back on a Saturday!

Last weekend I was torn between Kings Lynn and March for the location of my parkrun. Either could tie in with my journey back to Norfolk. In the end though, Oscar dictated the March event, as he took too long to eat his breakfast in the morning, and March is closer to us than Kings Lynn so at least I knew we would arrive in time!

I ended up actually arriving quite early and set Oscar up in his buggy, pushing him around what looked like a rather small park as my warm up. It felt really chilly as I got out of the car, but the temperature soon started to rise and I was glad I had decided to just wear a short sleeved t-shirt rather than any extra layers.

I had hurriedly checked both the Kings Lynn and March parkrun websites the previous evening to see that they were buggy suitable. I had failed to spot the mention of the four laps at the March event though, each including a set of ten steps!

They don’t look very steep here, but…TEN STEPS!

After a walked lap of the park (where we saw a rat run out in front of us and do a little dance, much to Oscar’s amusement!) I hung around the meeting point waiting for things to get underway. I did spot somebody else with a running buggy, although they had a much older child inside. There was a new runner briefing, which I took Oscar over to. After this, the guy who had the other buggy came over to say ‘hi’ and to share his tips for the best way of getting up the bank alongside the steps with the buggy. He suggested starting climbing the bank a little way before the steps, as it was less steep and less likely I would tip my child out of the buggy! I hoped that people didn’t think I was taking a short cut each time, but nobody seemed to shout me back at least. I still ran all the way over to the top of where the steps were before turning back on myself.

The picture below is taken from a video clip of the first lap which was posted on the March parkrun Facebook page. You can see me to the left of the shot making a getaway with Oscar!

Mainly people shouted out well dones for getting round with the buggy which was nice. The marshals were all lovely and so helpful when I spoke to them. It was a really friendly parkrun.

About half of the route was run along the grass, which was quite rutted in places. The marshals had used mini cones to place on any rabbit holes which runners might trip or fall from, which I thought was quite a good idea. The other half of each lap was run along the tarmacked pavement you can see in the above screenshot.

I started from the very back this week again, although quickly overtook several runners near to the start.

Although only a small parkrun, as well as running pacers, there was a run 1min, walk 1min pacer and a run 2min, walk 1min pacer, which I thought was a fantastic way to give non-runners or beginners the confidence to start visiting parkrun.Once completed and scanned in, we took a quick visit to the nearby swimming pool to change Oscar before completing our trip to Norfolk.Official time: 33:49Position: 97/132Gender position: 43/66Age category position: 5/7

Do you tie parkrun visits in with trips at the weekend?
Have any of the parkruns you have run contained steps?
Do you have an apricot top?
How many different parkrun events have you visited?

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go! I was supposed to run Ealing Half Marathon at the end of September and achieving a PB. Which would then lead nicely into a new PB at Chelmsford Marathon at the end of this month.

It all started out so well…

At the start of the Summer I couldn’t have asked for better results from my training – I PBd in 5 mile, 6 mile and 10k distances all in quick succession.

Then – injury, illness, my Mum being rushed to hospital and a very busy month of work all happened and the three weeks I was forced to take off fell at such a crucial point in my training cycle.

When I run Chelmsford next weekend it will be with the aim of getting round to the finish and completing my twelfth marathon. There will be no time pressure. I want to enjoy the race and am looking forward to spending 5+ hours out in the countryside without a toddler wanting me to read the same book for the twelfth time that day and without feeling like I should be tidying up the house or offering help in some way to somebody.

This doesn’t mean that I don’t want to cut my marathon time down further. Of course I do, but undertrained and returning from injury, this is not the time to be doing that. With all that has been going on I have lost nearly 2 stone in the last four weeks, so my body is not at it’s strongest currently.

Following my back injury in September, I’ve made several visits to the physio. I’ve been going to Strong Lines in Wellingborough, and cannot recommend Fred enough. Since my first visit I’ve been religiously completing my exercises to strengthen my core. Fred established that my left side is much weaker than my right but my whole core strength is pretty shocking. Something which deep down I knew, but didn’t know how best to go about fixing.

I have a series of exercises to complete each day, including some resistance band walking and planks in various positions. Fred used my phone to film me completing the exercises, which makes it super easy to check form and remind myself just what it is I need to be completing each day!

After watching me run on the treadmill, Fred established that my cadence was much too slow. Something I have focused on in the past. I currently fall naturally into a rhythm of about 140spm, when actually I should be running closer to 180, so this is something I need to focus on during road runs over the coming weeks as well.

I’m feeling so confident that I will be able to see improvements in my running with the addition of proper core work this Winter. I can already feel the benefits of the exercises after just a few weeks.

I received my annual rejection magazine from VLM for 2018 last week along with everybody else I know who hadn’t already guaranteed their place through a Good For Age entry or deferral. A couple of weeks earlier though I was lucky enough to be announced as an ambassador for Milton Keynes Marathon 2018. Milton Keynes was my very first marathon back in 2012 and so I have a soft spot for the race, having run it three times now (2012, 2013 and 2015) with the half marathon last year whilst pregnant. I’ve always enjoyed the event and it has been lovely to watch it grow into such a successful race in such a short amount of time. (The first Milton Keynes Marathon was held in 2012 the first year I ran it.)

As well as Chelmsford marathon next weekend I will be running Gower marathon in November. A tough, off-road, coastal trail marathon with a whole bunch of my running friends. We go every year (although I couldn’t last year as Oscar was only a few weeks old at the time). I’m really looking forward to the weekend away. I could definitely do with one at the moment!

After that I just have a couple of cross-country races pencilled in to end the year and I was thinking about entering Bedford half marathon in December to try and finish off the year on a high. My half marathon PB is in desperate need of updating, sitting at 2:09 from many years ago.

I haven’t fully organised next year’s calendar yet, but the target will be Milton Keynes Marathon in May.

Last year I was so, so excited to hear that there was a group from my club hoping to run the Round Norfolk Relay. A bit of bad timing on my part, to be 37 weeks pregnant and therefore resigned to a member of crew for the event, rather than being able to run though.

This year – not pregnant – my name was going on the running list!

I grew up in North Norfolk, although would not have classed myself as a runner whilst living there, so still have lots of running routes which I need to explore out that way. Most specifically those around the North Norfolk coastline, where I grew up.

The Round Norfolk Relay is a 198 mile route run around the border of the county, starting at Kings Lynn in the West. The 198 miles are split into 17 unequal stages so each team entered is made up of 17 runners, as well as a whole host of crew and timekeepers to help man them out on the route.

As one of the slower runners showing initial interest, I expected to be allocated a short road stage, so was rather surprised to learn that I would be running the 11 off-road miles between Cley and Cromer, within a few minutes driving distance from my parents’ house.

I knew the stage would be tough, starting on a deep shingle beach. I had fully intended on recceing the route over the Summer but with the route being unbuggy friendly and my Summer flashing by before my eyes – especially towards the end, I never got the opportunity to test out the route before the day.

This year, our club had gone from entering one team to two. Somehow we had found 34 runners to agree to run a stage of the race, as well as a handful of members to act as timekeeper, assist with support vehicles and generally help out where needed on the day.

The guidelines we had been given from the organiser within our club were to arrange transport with the club runner in the other team running the same stage as you. i.e. you would both drive to the finish of your stage, leave one car there before hopping in the other to drive back to the start of the stage. When you had both run the leg, you would be able to jump into the car left at the finish to go and collect the person’s car at the start again.

Sounds complicated, but in theory, should work well.
In practice, things were a little close at times. I was due to meet Zac, the other runner who was running Stage 5 at Cromer by 11:30am. At 12:45 when he said he was just leaving Wells (22 coastal miles away) to drive over and meet me, I told him I would find alternative arrangements and that he should head straight to the start…Zac was due to start his leg in just under half an hour, so would never have made it back to the start in time otherwise!

Good job it was really sunny in Cromer whilst I waited for my lift!)

I can see the sea!

Luckily, my brother was at home and free, so managed to collect me from Cromer and drop me off to my start in time.

Zac set off on his leg not long after I arrived in Cley. It was raining by this point, with a cold wind, and I had wrapped myself up in a coat pulled high up around my neck. I sat huddled in our timekeeper’s car until it neared my estimated start time. When we had first signed up as a team, we each had to give a rough minute mile pace for how long we expected to complete our stages, based on distance and terrain which was then converted into an overall running time. I had estimated 9:30mm pace for an offroad section of just short of 11 miles. My running had been going really well over the Summer and I had been fairly confident I would be able to hit that pacing.

That is, until my back had ‘gone’ earlier in the week. I had managed an easy 6 miles of trail with a friend on the Wednesday evening. My back had seemed to loosen up after the first mile, but by the Friday before the race, I was in agony walking around school. I spent most of my time between lessons sat with the school nurse whilst he swapped a heated pack for a cool one, or the other way around. Ibuprofen got me through each day, and every morning I hoped that the pain would have started to fade. I’ve had bad back pain in the past, but it has never lasted more than a few days before. The day before the race I could not even stand upright. I remembered that I heard CBD oil could ease the pain, so I checked out www.cbdforsure.com to learn about its medical use. I decided to give it a try and was surpriced to get well shortly.

Resigned to abandoning my target pace, but not abandoning my teammates, I drove over to Norfolk on the morning of the race. My Dad pressed a pack of double-strength Ibuprofen into my hand, and I made sure to take them at the optimum time to let them do their job before the run begun. I had no idea how the run would go. I hadn’t tried running again since the Wednesday evening, but my back had felt better for getting out for a run then. I knew I needed to see a physio the following week, and planned on playing it sensible out on the course – stopping and pulling from the race if my back didn’t loosen up the same way it had done on the trail run on Wednesday. I wasn’t sure of the rules on stage DNFs, but found out after the race that each team may have up to three DNFs, each one being given a forfeit time of the slowest time for that stage from the previous year plus five minutes.

I headed out of the car a few minutes before my estimated start time, and could just see the bright green club vest of Kat, the runner before me gradually bobbing closer – giving me enough time to clip together my UD bag and take my place at the handover marker.

Kat arrived pretty much dead on target time and I shot off across the shingle as she thrust the baton at me, wishing me luck for my stage. Although the pace on my watch initially showed 9:xx, it gradually slowed until it beeped at 10:27 for the first mile. I convinced myself that it didn’t matter – this was the toughest section on the shingle and I would easily be able to pull my time back later on in the race.

In actual fact, that was my fastest mile.

Within the first two miles I’d dropped my race instructions and then had to chase them across the beach. They were written across four pages as they were fairly detailed. I also almost got the baton stuck inside my vest as I pulled my hand through the top of my jacket. It wasn’t going well!

On the plus side though, either the Ibuprofen had really kicked in or the running was doing wonders for my back. I couldn’t feel a thing!

My face and lack of uprightness in this photo gives you a little idea how tough stage 5 actually was. I had already run four miles of shingle beach by this point, and was about to try climbing a shingle bank. I’d referred to my instructions numerous times and already stopped to remove my jacket, for it was far too hot to run in two layers as well as a waterproof by the time my stint began.

When I left the shingle beach, my climb began and the steep hill that had always looked so pretty on the outskirts of Sheringham loomed ahead of me. I’m not ashamed to say that I walked large portions of my stage – all of the steep hills I ended up walking, although I ran all of the flats and downhills as fast as I was able to try and make up for it.

Several runners passed me – all much faster than I was. It was clear that most teams had chosen a faster runner for this stage!

A runner passed me along the slipway at Sheringham beach. She shouted out that she had been following me as she had no idea where to go. I then went on to stop her twice from going wrong before we even left Sheringham!

Beeston Bump is another place I have driven past so many times during my time living in Norfolk. I worked just a few miles away in West Runton for many years. I’ve always wanted to climb the Bump and look out from the top. I didn’t get much chance to enjoy the view as I puffed and panted my way to the top on this day though!

The runner who had passed me at Sheringham appeared again. She kept speeding off but then at every junction spent ages working out which way to go by studying the instructions. She was definitely somebody who would have benefitted from a recce of the course beforehand! I shouted out ahead to her several times which way to turn and she held up her hand in thanks.

As we approached East Runton I could see Dawn, my support cyclist in the distance. I’ve never been happier to see a familiar face! That had been some incredibly tough running! I managed to puff out between breaths that this race had been even harder than running the 70 mile race the other year. Between us Dawn and I shouted several times to the lady just ahead as 5 or 6 times she turned down wrong tracks. The lady’s bike escort hadn’t materialised and so Dawn asked if I minded if she cycled on up ahead to make sure she didn’t go wrong again. Of course I didn’t. Each runner should have been accompanied by a cyclist when running alongside a road during the day. At night, the cyclist would be replaced by a car escort for safety. Dawn came back alongside me after putting the lady right, but I was too knackered to be able to chat much by this point!

I turned into the final field at Cromer to see the club chairman cheering me in. His wife was running the stage following mine, so he nipped across the field to let her know I was on my way. I thrust the baton into her hand and apologised profusely for my slower-than-planned time. She was lovely and told me not to worry in the slightest, before setting off for stage 6 of the relay.

In looking at the results following the event, it was reassuring to see that somehow I wasn’t the slowest runner on my stage! The fastest runner ran the stage in 1h 9m 09s. I was nearly an hour slower than that time in 2h 1m 43s – which worked out as nearly 20 minutes slower than my predicted time.

Despite my poor time estimation, our team had actually done quite well at guessing how long we would take. We had declared 27h 47m 58s before starting the race, and finished in 27h 48m 59s – just 1minute and 1second away from our prediction, winning us the Carrot Shield for best time prediction!

Overall our team finished in 48th position out of 61 teams, with our B team coming in 54th. We had a proper mix of abilities within our runners so it was nice that even though we had been so inclusive we weren’t right at the bottom of the finishing table. Our B team had hit a few problems during the race; one runner hadn’t made it to the start of his stage, so had to DNS, another dropped out as a DNF and one runner had to hold back starting their stage because the bike escort for that section hadn’t arrived in time to accompany them along their road stint.

All of us thoroughly enjoyed the event though, even those of us with tough stages(!)

All runners from both teams met at the pub the following week to be given our medals and for us to present a card and gift to Zac as a thank-you for organising our entry into the event. No easy task!

The medals are beautiful. Larger than my VLM medal from 2014 and with a lovely design incorporating several Norfolk elements on the front, and a list of all clubs taking part on the back, with the placenames of all of the stages around the outside.

I’m hoping to get some training in over the Winter along this route on days that my Dad agrees to watch Oscar for me. It will definitely be some good strength training going into marathon/ultra season next Spring.

And then I will be back at the Round Norfolk Relay again next year. Although, I’m not so sure I’ll go for the same stage this time! Stage five requires someone with a little more speed and strength behind them on the team! 😉

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About Mary…

Hi there! I'm Mary, an ICT teacher living in Northants, UK.
I fell in love with running and healthy eating a few years ago and have used my blog to keep track of my running and food adventures ever since.Want to know more?...